


your skin only holds my truth

by icywind



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode: s01e22 Beginning of the End, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1717619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icywind/pseuds/icywind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint’s back is Phil's favorite canvas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your skin only holds my truth

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have time to get this beta-read before the deadline - any mistakes are my own, please be gentle in pointing them out. 
> 
> Title and inspiration from Neil Gaiman's "I will write in words of fire"

I will write in words of fire.

I will write them on your skin.

I will write about desire.

Write beginnings, write of sin.

You’re the book I love the best,

your skin only holds my truth,

you will be a palimpsest

lines of age rewriting youth.

You will not burn upon the pyre.

Or be buried on the shelf.

You’re my letter to desire:

And you’ll never read yourself

I will trace each word and comma

As the final dusk descends,

You’re my tale of dreams and drama,

Let us find out how it ends.

-Neil Gaiman

 

~

 

 

Moonlight spills over Clint’s back and Phil can’t help himself, he has to glide his finger over the smooth skin, touch feather light. Not too light though, because the muscles shift under his exploration and a sleepy ‘MmmPhil?’ carries up from below him. 

“Shh…” he presses a kiss to Clint’s neck, another to his shoulder, and Clint hums in contentment. Phil’s running his fingers down, skimming the swell of Clint’s ass, when inspiration strikes and he’s moving from the bed to rifle through the night stand. By the time he’s found what he’s looking for Clint has propped his head up and is smiling at him, sleepy and fond, and Phil can’t help himself again (it’s his favorite Clint related problem, this inability to not indulge in touch and taste) and leans in for a kiss. It’s a touch deeper than he intends, but unhurried. They have all the time in the world. 

“S’like that, hm?” Clint asks, eyeing the skin-safe marker in Phil’s hand.

“Yes, please,” it comes out a little more breathy and needy than Phil had intended. He doesn’t really care, not with the look Clint gives him.

“Don’t even have to ask,” Clint replies, surging up for another kiss, making it a little dirty, then settling back on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms. 

Clint’s back is his favorite canvas. Not that Phil is much of an artist, mind; but, something about the archers back calls to him. Happily, he’d discovered long ago that Clint was all too eager to indulge this whim, lying still (or mostly still) as he glided pen or marker or paint over his body. 

Phil loses himself a little in it tonight, the flow of the ink over Clint’s glorious back, the marks taking shape against the pale background. It’s been so long since they’d been able to do this, been so long since they’d simply been together at all; and it feels like no time has passed between having all that sleep warm skin naked and empty beneath him and then suddenly he’s blinking and putting the final touch at the small of Clint’s back. 

Another blink, then a third, and something sparks in him, some recognition of what he’s painted across Clint’s back; but then the archer is turning, obscuring the work from view as he slips a hand up to Phil’s cheek, then slides it to his neck and pulls him into a kiss and Phil finds himself getting lost in Clint in a completely different way.

He thinks nothing of it the following morning, at least until Clint tries to twist himself around and ‘survey Phil’s latest masterpiece’ and then a surge of panic hits him in the gut. Instinct takes over and he begins to back Clint towards the shower.

“Shower sex?” Clint grins against his mouth as the spray turns on. “You sure are spoiling me, babe.”

Phil returns the smile in kind before pressing Clint against the wall and swallowing his responding moan. Neither of them notice the code as it transfers from Clint’s back onto the wet wall and then flows down the drain in a swirl of black.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [redsector-a](http://redsector-a.tumblr.com/) where you may be inundated at random intervals with pics of Renner and hockey players.


End file.
